Hearts of Chaos Read online

  “There, there,” Milton soothed.

  Lucia turned away. Her parents were right on one aspect: this was worth fighting for. To be free with their Lady-blessed gifts. To live openly with their totems. To be safe walking down the street unescorted without fear of assault or kidnapping from their enemies, as her aunt Sarah should have been safe. The Kivati way deserved to be protected, and Corbette had to be applauded for saving it from the wreckage of his father’s rule. Without him, the Kivati ability to Change and touch the Aether might have died out long ago. Corbette fought against that bleak future, a never-ending quest. But she didn’t think the old protectionist ways would work in the new post-Unraveling world. The Kivati needed to be leaders in rebuilding civilization, not separate and secluded like they’d been in the past.

  Delia cheered at something in the ring, and Lucia turned back to the combatants. “If Georgie were here—”

  “Georgie is dead,” Lucia said. I killed her.

  Delia paused. “Yes, well, Georgie would have loved this. Maybe she’s still watching from the other side of the Gate.” Georgie would’ve been leaning over the banister whistling catcalls and making rude jokes. Lucia missed her. Georgie would’ve been the first person to comfort Lucia after the Unraveling. She would never have given her distance and space and left her alone to fade away in spirit if not in body. But Georgie, like so many others, hadn’t survived the Unraveling, and Lucia had been left alone to mourn her friend with the black mark of her death on her conscience.

  Lucia had spent far too much time trying to be perfect to please Corbette and her parents. She’d almost forgotten who she’d once been—the girl who popped gum and sang off-key in the Raven Lord’s presence just to get him to notice her, the girl who’d evaded her guards and snuck out to the Drekar’s illicit club, the girl who took risks just to prove she was still her own person.

  She couldn’t go backward, but she didn’t have to be the perfect Kivati lady she’d been trying to be either. It was time to forge a new path. Without Corbette. Without her parents’ hard-to-win approval.

  “What’s the score?” she asked as she studied the ring.

  “The Bear clocked the Crow and has the Thunderbird pinned. He’s big, he’s mean, but I’d never have thought he’d have it in him to best a Thunderbird general.”

  Lucia sucked in a little breath. Not the Bear. He’d been one of Rudrick’s.

  “Don’t worry,” a deep voice said behind her. “Theo’s just messing with him.”

  Lucia turned in her seat to find Lord Kai looming over her. The sky illuminated the red tones in his dark mane. Ladies always whispered that the Thunderbird was handsome as the devil and twice as wicked. She’d always been a little afraid of him. Unpredictable, he was. Improper. Kai would never keep himself in check if he were engaged to a girl. Sensual, dangerous Kai wouldn’t let such an opportunity go to waste.

  He took her hand and bowed over it. “Good morning, my lady.”

  “Hi.” She smiled. Next to her, Constance scented danger, stopped crying, and straightened up. They wanted her wed, didn’t they? The strongest warrior next to Corbette was Kai, but safe he wasn’t. The Blessed Lady seemed to be pushing her in a certain, disreputable direction.

  Kai gave her his wickedest piratical grin, and kissed the back of her hand. If she wanted to stick it to Corbette, she had to look no further. She could put herself firmly in the rebel camp, be a banner maiden for overthrowing the old ways. With Kai at her side, they’d dismiss all Corbette’s propriety and control. Everything he’d worked to build, every drop of blood he’d shed for their people, she could turn it all to dust.

  “Aren’t you entering?” she asked. Her father gave a choked grunt.

  Ignoring her parents, Kai put a hand over his heart. “Would you like me to? I’m touched.” He leaned forward so that his voice rumbled in the air between them. He had eyes for her and her only; it was a thrill. “Give me a token of your esteem, and I’ll clear the ring for you.”

  Nerves danced along Lucia’s spine. This was a dangerous game. Maybe Corbette was right and that first kiss was forgettable—she wouldn’t know, would she, without kissing another man in comparison? If there were any man domineering enough to compare Corbette to, it would be Kai. Closing the distance between them, she gave Kai’s lips a light touch. “A kiss for good luck.” There were gasps and cheers from the surrounding crowd.

  Kai arched a brow. “You call that a kiss?” He seized her upper arms and dragged her close, so that her breasts pressed into the hard planes of his chest, and landed a hard, fierce kiss on her mouth. His tongue swept out through her shocked lips, and all she could do was tremble as he sent the Aether sweeping across her nerve endings. Ye. Gods.

  He stepped back. “Now you’ve done it, my lady. I can’t help but win.”

  Lucia could only stare as she tried to catch her breath.

  He cast a look at the balcony above and something dark flashed across his features, but it was there and gone in an instant. She wasn’t sure she hadn’t imagined it. He shrugged out of his shirt, eliciting a squeal from Delia, and, with a rakish grin, entered the ring. Theo had just finished knocking the Bear out, as Kai had predicted he would.

  “Theo, how ’bout you stop playing around? These fine people didn’t come out for a picnic.”

  Two men dragged Benard away, and Theo shook Kai’s hand. The audience perked up at seeing two Thunderbird generals in their prime. This was what they’d been waiting for. The undercurrent buzzed with rebellion. She could taste danger on the soft west wind.

  “If Kai wins,” Delia whispered, “there will be no going back.”

  “Would that be a bad thing?” Lucia asked.

  “Only if you’re sure you don’t want Corbette.”

  “I don’t see him in the ring fighting for my hand.”

  Kai flipped Theo with a move that was barely visible to the human eye. This contest was physical only—no shifting, no manipulation of the elements. Theo was tired from previous bouts, but Kai’s torso showed recent wounds too.

  Lucia glanced back at the Hall. Corbette stood on the balcony with his black greatcoat blowing out in the wind like wings. His hair whipped around his face. His stern nose and handsome face were cast in shadow. He didn’t watch the fight in front of her. His gaze locked on her own, and he gave a little nod.

  He’d seen. She felt a moment’s panic. He’d seen her kiss another man, one of his trusted generals, no less.

  But wasn’t that what she was here for? He’d tasted her kiss and let her go as if she were a spawning salmon. That shock of Aether was one-sided. Instead, he almost pushed her into the arms of his adversary. He’d made a spectacle of her, let their private pain radiate across the Kivati. She could do no less than take his challenge seriously. He didn’t want her? Fine. She would forget all about him.

  Turning forward in her seat, she watched the Thunderbirds circle each other on the lawn. Both were brawny. Both sported the intricate Thunderbird feather tattoos on their backs to remind them of their totem while in their human skin. Most Kivati youth were inked after they completed the totem ceremony. Her skin had rejected the ink and was now bare as those with watered-down blood, those not Lady-blessed enough to Change, like her cousin and the healer Kayla. It had seemed like an omen at the time; she was Crane, but not-Crane.

  She didn’t need ink to remember the Crane, but watching the shirtless Thunderbirds go at it made her feel unfinished somehow. How could she forget her role when every moment of every day she was told how lovely and perfect and priceless she was? Watched, by everyone, with jealousy and pity as they waited for her to do Great Things? The phantom scars on her wrists and inner thighs itched.

  Kai caught her eye and winked. Theo took that opportunity to jab with his right fist, but Kai saw it coming. The smack of fist on flesh echoed in the early evening air.

  Kai and Theo were too evenly matched to knock about. They circled and circled, playing up a jab here and there just for the audie
nce. She tried to imagine picking Theo over Kai. A drop of sweat trickled down her back beneath her corset.

  “Lady be, did you see Corbette’s face?” her mother whispered. “I don’t think he’s given you up after all. He’s going to enter; I just know it.”

  Lucia shook her head. She wanted nothing to do with him. Standing, she pulled her handkerchief from her pocket, and threw it at the grappling Thunderbirds in the ring. Theo caught the flash of white out of the corner of his eye, and Kai used his distraction to deliver a brutal uppercut. Theo slammed into the wet ground in a shower of dirt. Kai caught the handkerchief before it fluttered to the ground. He raised it to her with his wicked smile teasing the crowd, then placed it to his lips and inhaled. She smiled, since all eyes were on her. “Bravo,” she said. The crowd cheered.

  “Who else fights for the glory of the Lady?” Kai asked. No one stepped forward.

  “It looks like I have a champion, then.” She reached for the laurel crown sitting on a velvet cushion at her feet.

  “Wait—” Constance put a gloved hand out to stop her.

  Murmurs spread through the crowd, and Lucia looked up to see who might be crazy enough to challenge the strongest Thunderbird.

  Corbette stood at the entrance to the contender grounds.

  Corbette found himself standing at the edge of the crowd without truly knowing how he’d gotten there. He’d watched the tournament with growing black rage until he felt weighted down like a submersible on the ocean floor. His ears buzzed. He was aware of shocked noises around him, but he hadn’t realized he intended to enter until his hand landed on the gate to the fighting ground.

  He felt a vibration through the Aether that signaled a message from one of his Thunderbirds. Only powerful Aether mages could send messages directly through the Sparkling Water of the Universe. He paused, one hand on the latch.

  What are you doing? Will demanded.

  Corbette had no response. He really, truly, had planned to give her up. She’d said she didn’t want him, and he didn’t want her messing up his plans either. His mind flashed unbidden to the scene in the library. She’d kissed him. A woman didn’t kiss a man she had no interest in.

  The Aether stream from Will turned sour. Too late Corbette realized that he’d shared that memory with the Thunderbird. He stifled the connection and tipped his head to the ash cloud in the south, where Mount Rainier used to be visible on the horizon. “To the glory of our goddess,” he murmured. The two snow-covered humps of the mountain had been said to be the Lady’s milky breasts. The mountain had erupted during the Unraveling. The top half turned into a cloud of hot ash that was still falling on the trees and houses.

  Corbette stripped off his coat and shirt. He entered the ring, and bowed to Lucia. She stood with her lips parted, eyes wide, face pale. What was he doing? But it was too late to back out. The Raven screeched inside him. His totem had never wanted to let her go.

  Kai growled low, and Corbette turned to him. “There’s no Aether in this contest,” Kai said. A muscle flexed in his jaw.

  “Then you might have a chance,” Corbette said. “But I doubt it.”

  Kai rushed him. Corbette let his mind fall into the Raven’s presence. The Raven swooped his human form beneath Kai’s arm and danced beyond his reach. All of a sudden a blast of Aether shot from the direction of Puget Sound. It knocked him off his feet, but caught him up before he could hit the ground. His body was a conductor, and the Aether held him rigid in its raging tides. Kai, less Aether-sensitive and in attack mode, drove a sharp uppercut that rocked Corbette back on his heels. The Aether broke around him, and he crashed to the ground, stunned.

  The audience gasped. Above him, Kai’s face drained of color. He stared at his fist, then searched the hushed crowd, then turned back to Corbette. Corbette could only lie there and will the breath to come back to his lungs. What had happened out at sea? Only one thing was certain: something terrible was coming this way, and his Aether powers—hitherto unmatched—didn’t hold a candle to it.

  Lucia stared at Corbette. He’d fallen from a punch he should have seen coming. How could their leader fall?

  Corbette coughed. “Good show,” he said to Kai, voice hoarse. Aether rolled from him, heating the air, sparkling over the skin of the watching Kivati. The urge to Change called to Lucia. He wiped the trickle of blood off the corner of his mouth. Aether power wasn’t measured in the physical portion of the tournament, but Corbette couldn’t turn it off. It washed out from his pores and swirled around his crouched body.

  “Get up, damn it,” Kai muttered.

  Corbette stood so gracefully it seemed like the Aether floated him up. The sparkling water churned around him. His hair fanned out from his neck. “Lady Lucia,” he said, voice deeper than a roll of thunder, “please crown the victor.”

  She fumbled for the laurel wreath and dropped it. Kai didn’t wait around. By the time she bent to retrieve the crown and stood back up, he was gone.

  The crowd didn’t part as readily this time for Corbette to make his retreat. It was no longer a game.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Constance asked, growing increasingly hysterical. “He . . . he has to take Lucy. Who will protect her? He can’t leave her!”

  “Listen to them.” Milton motioned to the crowd.

  “Animals can’t follow a weak leader. Once the Alpha is old or injured—”

  “He can’t do this,” Lucia said. “Just to get rid of me? He’ll lose his throne too.” Responsibility, he’d said. He’d made it very clear in the library that he’d never give up his rule for her.

  “Maybe that’s his plan,” her father said. “Look at him. Maybe he set this whole thing up for a clean transfer of power. It’d be the only way to stop a rebellion from shattering the Kivati into warring tribes. Maybe he doesn’t plan to survive.”

  “No,” Lucia denied it. She watched him walk, tall and proud even though his pack had turned on him. He strode past her, eyes straight ahead. He wasn’t even going to acknowledge her? She bit her tongue to keep herself from moving forward. He was so alone. “Emory Corbette doesn’t know the word ‘defeat.’”

  He was driven determination down to his marrow. It had long been joked that when it came time to join the spirit world, Corbette would crisply tell the Blessed Lady that he was too busy to go. There was no mountain he couldn’t climb, no ocean he couldn’t swim. Intimidating as hell, but comforting too. In the dark days after the Unraveling, she’d seen Corbette’s strength and determined to pull herself together. If he could rebuild their people from the ashes of the Great Fire, if he could fight the unceasing war against the Drekar and not lose hope, if he could enforce a bastion of Victorian civilization amid the encroachments and seductions of the modern age for thousands of arrogant shape-shifters, then nothing—no, nothing—could threaten their race. She—all of them—believed victory was inevitable, because Corbette would will it to be so.

  But Corbette’s abrupt defeat spread fear through the crowd. Intuitively, she knew that without him, the strict hierarchy that he had imposed would break down as Crow turned to Crow and Cougar to Cougar. The large totem tribes would break away, leaving unique totems like Hummingbird, Whale, and Crane to fend for themselves. She couldn’t let that happen, she realized. Even if no prophesized powers of Crane had manifested yet, she had to start acting like a leader. She couldn’t sit by and let Corbette dictate her future anymore. She stood up and pushed past her parents. “Let’s go, Delia.”

  “Where are we going?” her sister asked as she hurried to catch up.

  “You wanted a revolution? You got one.”

  Kai let the Change burn through him and he collapsed in his human form on the beach at Discovery Park. The islands of Puget Sound hunkered down against the night like giant tortoises, each one bearing its own little world on its back to swim through the starry universe. He grabbed a handful of rocks as he jumped to his feet and flung them at the offending deities.

  “Gods damn you, Jace!” Neithe
r his brother nor the gods answered him. He yanked the Aether and made the wind pick up an eighty-foot beached log and hurl it out to sea. The uncaring ocean swallowed it with only a hint of sound. “You get back here and fix this!”

  He threw a boulder with the wind, but it wasn’t as satisfying as letting out his anger physically. He needed his hands on someone. Punching, kicking, dodging. Letting the sweat and blood and flesh take this frustration that swelled under his skin. By thunder, he wanted to kill someone.

  But not Corbette. Not for the throne. Not for a woman. Especially not the prophesied Crane Wife.

  Lucia wasn’t so bad. Any other girl who’d been pampered and petted from age thirteen would have become a self-centered bitch, but Lucia had managed to keep herself grounded. She had a little rebellious streak that he could appreciate, even if she didn’t have the backbone to back it up. He didn’t have much use for fragile, delicate women. Didn’t want to waste time tiptoeing and kowtowing to some drama queen.

  He thought the Unraveling had driven that last spark of defiance out of her, making her into the perfect doormat for Corbette’s ruthless rule. If only she hadn’t caught him in the alley with Zetian, she would never have been able to blackmail him. It was one thing to risk his life dancing naked with a psychotic dragon. It was another for Corbette to find out. Kai wasn’t so much afraid of banishment or death as he was of his brother’s ghost coming back from the dead to kick his ass. Jace had died for the Kivati. Kai owed it to him to stay and rebuild their people.

  Besides, when Lucia had come to him with her proposition that he lead his Western House against Kingu, she’d had a familiar determined light in her eyes. He had to keep her alive whether she wanted to battle a demigod with her own two hands or march into the Land of the Dead itself. Jace had died trying to free Lucia after she’d been kidnapped by one of Kai’s own men.